Hello, I would appreciate any help. I have been cleared by DOST since 1995, and when I applied for a passport that time, the DFA asked for my DOST clearance. I showed them my clearance and they gave me my passport....but then EVERY five years thereafter, whenever I renewed my passport, they ALWAYS ask for my clearance again! Hello, I have been cleared for 15 years! I tried calling the DFA pero laging busy ang phone or walang sumasagot.

Does anyone else experience this problem? And what is the best way to solve this? FYI, I went to the DFA Office in Pasay and they told me to go to the Passport Center near MOA to have my name "Updated", but I understand that over there, ang pinapapasok lang ay mga passport applicants with appointment schedules.

Thanks!

Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:17 pm

jrgalbertFreshmen

Joined: 11 Nov 2011Posts: 2Location: Makati

With all the brouhaha over watch lists these days, I find it
absolutely crazy that Ramona Bautista and Senator Ping Lacson evaded
the justice system, and yet scholars of the Department of Science and
Technology (DOST) are permanently put on a watch list of the National
Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

- Hide quoted text -
From 1985 to 1988, I was supported by the DOST in obtaining my
undergraduate degree at De La Salle University (DLSU). Shortly
thereafter, I obtained permission from DOST to go overseas to take a
Masters degree, and subsequently a PhD (in Statistics), working out
all the cmm procedures to have DOST agree to postponing my
three year service requirement (of serving within the Philippines).

After returning to the Philippines, I worked for nearly a year as a
full time asst. prof at DLSU (then joined religious life for five
years), then joined government service. I have served a total of
twelve years in government to date (8 of them under the Statistical
Research and Training Center, and the last four at the Philippine
Institute for Development Studies). thus fulfilling my service
requirement.

Yet, everytime I have to travel for a long mission overseas, I have to
secure an NBI clearance and it takes a while to do that as I, like all
DOST scholars, are on a permanent watch list. The DOST Science
Education Institute has already requested NBI to take me out of their
watch list, but yet, this has not been done, supposedly because the
NBI database "can not" be updated "... Huh???? This is really
ridiculous... If they can put someone one a watch list, why can't we
be taken out ? I was told that the NBI database is complicated, and
one can't just delete people on a watch list. This clearly shows that
people don't understand databases... and innovation is something that
is not practiced, especially in some government agencies, particularly
at the NBI. I only wonder whether the fingerprints archived by NBI
are at all used for any purpose...

I have complained to DOST and to NBI about this, but until now, there
is no action. Clearly, DOST has no control over the NBI database,
but there may be a way to help NBI in curing this malady. Otherwise,
many of our youth may decide not to be DOST scholars anymore. Do we
need to wonder why many scientists prefer not to come back to the
Philippines, and why we have very few scientists in this country?